Aren’t we all guilty?

I have decided to play the blind to my amateurish ‘poetic nonsense’ and speak the language every layman understands. Countless times, a couple of other countrymen and I have rained curses on certain people in the corridors of power or if you like, the helm of affairs. Some have called for a change of party system, ruling party and ideology.

Some advocate dictatorship as the best form of government Nigeria deserves. Others say a change from capitalism to socialism would change the condition of people. However, the one question that has been in my mind is: aren’t we all guilty of the mess in Nigeria?

The mighty Iroko tree, we seem to forget, is formed by a seed buried underneath the soil. If corruption has become a force to reckon with on the political arena and indeed every facet of the Nigerian society, isn’t it that we allow the scourge to flourish? Charity, they say, begins at home. If the family unit truly makes a society, then every Nigerian family must have a fair share in the blame and curses we rain on our leaders.

As our elders have it, it is the egg that becomes the cock. Every Dick, Tom and Harry in leadership position today certainly undergoes such biological transitions. If we now say our leaders are greedy, inconsiderate, ruthless, self-centered and gluttonous, I dare say, the society is to blame.

If given the same opportunity, I bet it, you and I would seek first the kingdom for ‘self’ before other things are attended to.

Let us face it, we are as guilty as the victim of our accusation. No defendants as there are no plaintiffs in this blame game. Therefore, when we curse a member of the Nigerian family in power, we indirectly curse, by extension, every other family, rich or poor, who must have benefitted from the largesse of power. It is a long and endless chain.

My brother, sister, niece, nephew, cousin, uncle, aunt, etc walks into my office but meets many qualified job seekers seated outside. He or she gets the job he or she is not qualified for but at the expense of other qualified applicants. This is called connection and it is also a form of corruption

Aren’t you and I then an integral part of the same corruption we hate with passion in public offices? On a lighter note, if corruption were to be killed today, there would be death in every household. Now that it has been established that the scourge is in every home, our holier-than-thou minds dissolve in the face of this reality. What then is the way forward?

Though, I’m not in any way exempted from the malaise, yet I must suggest that every man begins to see wealth as useless without its distribution. If everyone is rich in a society does not mean anyone rich. We only know the privileged people are rich because some others are poor.

Besides, the same sweat of the poor is used to build the wealth the rich enjoy. If a man has one hundred mansions scattered across the country and another is homeless, the one with many mansions cannot sleep in two rooms at a time; why can’t be his brother’s keeper by given him a room? If we all live our lives with other people in mind, the world would be a better place.

If our society must be saved, everybody must play his own part to clear the mess of corruption and bad attitude in the country. If this malaise persists, it means all the families on the Nigerian landscape are guilty of the crime we all accuse the leadership of.